How is Australia deciding whether or not to legalise same-sex marriage?

Australians are to be asked by the federal government:

Should the law be changed to allow same-sex couples to marry?

Surveys will be sent out by post from 12 September and the results will be announced by David Kalisch, the Australian Statistician (head of the Australian Bureau of Statistics) at 11.30am on 15 November.

Why can’t couples of the same sex get married already?

In 2004 John Howard’s government changed the law to define marriage as between a man and a woman. Weeks after Britain legalised “civil partnerships” for same-sex couples and as some states in the US and Canada legalised same-sex marriage, the Marriage Act was amended. “Marriage means the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life,” the amended act said. “Certain unions are not marriages. A union solemnised in a foreign country between: a man and another man; or a woman and another woman; must not be recognised as a marriage in Australia.”

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Julia Gillard’s Labor government allowed a free vote on same-sex marriage (although she was then opposed to it), but Coalition MPs (and some Labor MPs) voted en masse to defeat it. In 2013 the territory government in Canberra passed a law permitting same-sex marriage, and several couples held weddings, but they were ruled illegal by the high court because of the Marriage Act.

A nationwide vote is not needed to change the law. But there are several years of history behind that question. In 2015, the then prime minister Tony Abbott rejected calls to allow his MPs a free vote on the issue, proposing instead a plebiscite – a compulsory national vote – on whether to change the law, after the next election. Shortly afterwards Abbott was replaced as prime minister in an internal party coup by Malcolm Turnbull, a declared supporter of marriage equality.

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The postal vote is technically a collection of statistical information, which the government believes it has the power to order the ABS to conduct without new legislation. The Australian Electoral Commission, which conducts ordinary elections, cannot conduct the plebiscite because legislation for it was blocked.

This is also why we’re now calling the process a postal survey – not a plebiscite. The bits of paper voters will use to give their views are “survey forms” not ballot papers.

The AEC is still involved in the process: it is updating enrolments, giving the electoral roll to the ABS and helping it contact “silent electors”.

Who is entitled to vote?

Australians who are aged 18 years or older and who are enrolled on the commonwealth electoral roll (or who have made a valid request for enrolment) by the end of 24 August 2017. To help voters who are overseas, in a remote area, or have no permanent address, the ABS said it will provide a paperless option for voting, which will include the ability to vote over an automated phone service or online with a special code requested in advance by the voter. This option will also be available to those living in a residential aged care facility and the visually impaired. Silent electors – whose names but not addresses appear on the electoral roll – will have forms mailed to them by the AEC. They will be able to vote without the ABS knowing their address. There will also be sites in capital cities from which eligible people can pick up survey forms.

Why does the survey cost $122m?

We don’t have a precise breakdown of costs, but on 7 September David Kalisch told a Senate inquiry that so far the survey has cost $14.1m. That included $6m for the first stage of the advertising campaign to encourage enrolment and $5.3m to print 16m survey forms and 30m envelopes.

The remaining advertising campaign, to raise awareness and encourage Australians to respond to the survey, will cost a further $15m. Other costs include those associated with the Australian Electoral Commission updating the electoral roll and a helpline run by the Department of Human Services.

Who is running the yes and no cases?

The yes case is being run by the Equality Campaign, an initiative of Australian Marriage Equality, the leading lobby group on the issue for many years. The Equality Campaign is run by campaign director Tim Gartrell, a former secretary of the Labor party and leader of the Recognise campaign team, and the director of Australians For Equality, Tiernan Brady.

The no case is being run by Coalition for Marriage, which has a number of constituent organisations including Marriage Alliance and the Australian Christian Lobby. ACL’s director, Lyle Shelton, has been the most visible opponent of same-sex marriage so far in the campaign.

Although, according to pollsters Crosby Textor, most Christians support marriage equality, the leaders of the Anglican and Catholic church in Sydney also support a no vote.

Abbott is voting no. His sister, Sydney councillor Christine Forster, who is engaged to her partner Virginia Edwards, is voting yes.

The ABS plans to issue survey forms from 12 September, starting with the hardest locations to reach, with the aim of all Australians receiving their forms “ideally” by 22 September, and 25 September at the latest. The ABS “strongly encourages” all Australians to return their forms by 27 October 2017 but will accept forms until 7 November (6pm EST).

What will stop fraud?

Jonathan Palmer, the deputy Australian statistician in charge of the survey, has conceded that the ABS “can’t guarantee against theft in a postal process”.

He told a Senate committee that it is against the law to open someone else’s mail “and penalties around misleading the statistician” would also apply to submitting another person’s vote. If a person who did not receive a survey form applies for a new one, it would be reissued with a new barcode, preventing the old ballot being counted.

However, in practice it will be very difficult to determine if somebody has voted on another person’s behalf unless they ring up to ask for a fresh form, and there might be any number of reasons they don’t do that (didn’t plan on voting, can’t be bothered, overseas on holiday, etc).

The penalty for misleading the statistician is up to $2,100.

And can I vote for someone else?

If a person can’t access their survey form or complete it independently, they can authorise another person to complete the form on their behalf, but a person can’t self-appoint themselves to vote on another person’s behalf.

Are there any other protections to the process?

The government has made an offer to Labor and the Greens to pass a bill extending electoral law provisions for authorisations of ads and banning misleading information, fraud, bribery and intimidation to protect the survey.

However the ban on “misleading information” only applies to misrepresentations about the process of voting and the source of material (ie an incorrect authorisation), not about nasty things that might be said during the campaign. Already, there’s a fair amount of unpleasant stuff out there.

What if I glitter-bomb my ballot?

The ABS has warned that including “extraneous material” may result in a vote not being counted and glitter might be particularly problematic and muck up their counting machines. The ABS wants people to use a “dark pen or pencil” but is not sure whether a dark glitter pen could work. No official prohibition on decorating the envelope but one assumes if Australia Post can deliver it, all’s fair in love and postal surveys

Will my identity and my vote be secret?

Survey forms will be scanned in with a barcode. The ABS insists that no employees will have access to both the identity of the person associated with a barcode and the result of their vote.

What will the results tell us?

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The ABS will report how many of the 16 million enrolled Australian voters respond to the survey, and the number who vote yes and no. Results will be reported by electorate, state and nationally. The ABS will also give a breakdown of participation by age and gender, but not how those demographics voted.

How do we know who won?

The vote will be decided by a simple majority of people who return the form. Some MPs and senators have reserved the right to vote according to their conscience or their electorate’s result, but the national vote will determine if the government allows consideration of a private member’s bill to legalise same-sex marriage.

What then?

A yes vote could result in a successful law to legalise same-sex marriage by the end of the year, passed by the House of Representatives and Senate.

A yes vote will lead to a vote of parliament supported by the Coalition. A no vote will not. MPs are not required to vote along the lines of the vote of the survey. But Turnbull says the legislation “will absolutely sail through” parliament if voters back equal marriage.

A no vote would mean there would be no free parliamentary vote on same-sex marriage, so it would be up to Coalition MPs and senators to cross the floor, if they so chose, or a future government to legislate it.

Which bill would be used to make the change?

If the yes vote succeeds there are at least two bills that could be used, one circulated by the attorney general, George Brandis, and one written by Liberal senator Dean Smith, with input from a Senate committee.

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However, the government hasn’t said which bill would be used and there’s nothing to stop other members putting up alternatives which could differ in substance from those two.